A cemented carbide is suitably used in cutting tools conventionally widely used in metal cutting processes. With increasing demand for heat resistant alloys, such as Inconel and titanium, there has been a desire for a cutting tool that produces excellent cutting performance during cutting of the heat-resistant alloy. With the conventional cutting tools, however, the neighborhood of a cutting edge reaches high temperatures during the cutting. This leads to the problem that thermal cracking occurs on the cutting edge and a crack propagates from the thermal cracking, resulting in chipping and a fracture in the cutting edge.
Patent Document 1 discloses a cutting tool made from a cemented carbide that is composed mainly of WC and contains 12-14% by mass of Co and 0.3-0.6% by mass of Cr. The cemented carbide has an antimagnetic force (Hc) of 15-25 kA/m and a deflective strength of 3.5 GPa or more. Patent Document 1 describes that the cutting tool produces satisfactory cutting performance in a cutting process of heat resistant alloys, such as titanium and Inconel.